“Wiiiiiii!” she exclaimed delightedly she rode the New Game Train.

I’m not much of a title person.  Can you tell?

Lately I’ve been perusing the classifieds quite a bit because there have been more and more ads popping up as people clear out the cobwebs from their basements and cottages.  I saw an ad for a few Wii games appear, and it was conveniently for the three Wii games I’ve been seeking for a while.  I don’t have a lot of Wii games and my checklist for the console is pretty small, so to kill three birds with one stone felt too good to be true.

Now, before I go on about what I actually bought this time around, I wanted to get this off my chest: this particular purchase was actually a really weird experience for me.  After contacting the seller and agreeing on a price, he asked me to meet him at his high school.  As a nearly 31-year-old woman, I felt totally weird and creepy meeting up with someone so young to exchange cash for goods on school property during school hours, but he refused my attempts to arrange a meeting time elsewhere.  Despite getting the willies over the meeting, I am happy I did it in the end because the games were well-loved and exactly what I was looking for.  The first two I’ll mention are Animal Crossing: City Folk, and Pikmin 2.

Animal Crossing games are slowly starting to add up in my collection.  I have a copy of the original GameCube game as well as Wild World on DS.  I haven’t heard much about City Folk, but I always enjoy finding games for a deal.  This game was only $5, and it came complete with its manual and was in reasonably decent shape.  I’m not sure when I’ll get around to playing this one since I’m struggling to resolve the guilt I feel around abandoning my first town on the GameCube just last year.  The number of weeds there must be atrocious, and thinking about it makes me cringe.  I’m also still feeling bitter about being cornered by K.K. Slider that first Saturday night I tried to talk to him and was suddenly stuck listening to his song for 5 whole minutes.  I’m not sure I’m ready yet.

The Pikmin 2 game was a really exciting thing to run across.  I own the first Pikmin game on GameCube and had been interested in getting the second game for months now, but I hadn’t been able to find a reasonably priced GameCube copy.  After doing a bit of research to distinguish the difference between the GC and Wii releases, I found out that many people actually liked the control changes on the Wii and recommended the game over the original release.  It was also helpful that the game was being sold for $20, which was an absolute steal given its going rate everywhere I’ve seen it ($60+).  I might end up playing the Pikmin games between RPGs if I can ever get around to finishing those!

The third game I found was Kirby’s Dream Collection (Special Edition), a compilation I’ve wanted to own for many years.  I originally passed up buying a used copy from EB Games a long while ago for $10, and I’ve regretted it ever since.  Looking back on things, this regret came at a time in my life where I didn’t own a single Kirby game, and now I own almost all the games on the compilation with the exception of Kirby’s Dreamland 3.  Things have definitely changed!  Because I never plan to purchase Kirby’s Dreamland 3 for the SNES unless I find it at a garage sale for dirt cheap (it’s a $100 cartridge!), the Wii bundle will have to do.  In addition to the games, what I loved about the idea of the Dream Collection was the music CD soundtrack.  I can’t wait to pop it in and have a listen.

A little aside on the topic of music CDs: I recently found a sealed copy of the Super Mario History Soundtrack CD that I have no intention of opening (no photo here since the wrap makes the already difficult gold-on-red font even harder to read.)  After listening to the tracks on YT, I’m honestly a little disappointed.  All they did was release one song from each of the Super Mario Bros. games released to date at the time, but didn’t do anything new with them.  If I want to hear the Ground/Athletic Themes from any of the Mario games, I’ll just pop in the game and play it.  I much prefer re-orchestrations or re-imaginings of these classic tunes in the same vein as what they did with The Legend of Zelda’s 25th Anniversary Special Orchestra CD.  I’m surprised Nintendo didn’t do more for its flagship franchise’s 25th anniversary celebration, but I digress.  Aside complete!

The only thing missing from the Kirby compilation was the cardboard sleeve (meh) and the art book.  I asked the seller if he had it lying around somewhere and had forgotten to include it, but it turns out that it was given away to a friend.  Oh well.  There is lots of Kirby art online.  He is just the cutest, and I would pinch his cheeks all day long if I could.  For the low, low price of $20, I couldn’t pass this one up either.

In extremely exciting news, I am heading out of town this weekend to visit an old friend of mine from high school.  He has an enormous game collection that he has been amassing for years and was considering selling it last year when I had sent him an email checking in.  Soon after we spoke, his wife had their first baby and as a result, everything has been pushed to now.  In the meantime he has sent me some photos, and there are some truly excellent things in there.  I won’t spoil much, but if he is still willing to sell, I might be able to obtain some true rarities and gems.  What’s killing me is that he’s only sent me photos of half of what he has.  There’s still 50% I know nothing about!

The suspense is killing me.

Anyway, I hope that you all enjoy the slide down to the end of the week from Hump Day.  Hopefully I will have some new and exciting updates around the bend.

Thanks for reading, as always!

-GG